No Jumping On The Bed!

No Jumping on the Bed! is a children's book written and illustrated by Tedd Arnold. Published in 1987, it marked the first of the many children's books that Arnold was to both write and illustrate. No Jumping on the Bed! won the 1988 International Reading Association/Children's Book Council Children's Choice Award, the Georgia Children's Picture Storybook Award in 1990, and the Volunteer State Book Award in 1992. The book is aimed at 4-7 year olds and written in humorous rhyming prose, similar in style to that of Dr. Seuss whom Arnold acknowledges as a major influence on his work. It tells the story of Walter, a little boy whose father has told not to jump up and down on his bed. Walter dreams that he has ignored his father's warning with disastrous results. He and his bed fall through all seven floors of his apartment building, taking with them all the neighbors in the floors below.

Arnold's inspiration for the story came when he and his young family moved from Florida to an old apartment building in Yonkers, New York. His son Walter, for whom the protagonist is named, was four years old at the time and loved jumping on his bed. As Arnold writes:

"But Walter's bedroom floor was someone else's ceiling! The whole idea of apartment living was new to me back then. People living upstairs. More people living downstairs! New experiences like that seem to spark my imagination."

Arnold's oft-repeated warning to his son of "No jumping on the bed!" became the title of the book.